A Paper for Medieval Studies 452 :
The Illustrated Book in the Later Middle Ages
University of Victoria, Dr. C. Harding

April 17, 2001

Introduction

The Bestiary of Anne Walshe (Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek
Gl. kgl. Saml. 1633 4˚) is a Latin bestiary of English origin, produced
circa 1400-25.
[1]
It is now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has been made available as an
electronic facsimile which has been published on the Web.
[2]
Almost nothing else has been published about this manuscript. Christian Bruun
included a short description in a catalog
[3]
of Danish manuscripts in 1890, but according to Erik Drigsdahl
[4]
this account is "obsolete and worthless." Another catalog
[5]
of manuscripts in the Kongelige Bibliotek in Copenhagen, produced in 1926,
gives a more formal (though even briefer) description, but adds little new
information. Drigsdahl has also produced a preliminary Web index
[6]
to the online manuscript, and the manuscript was included in an exhibition
catalog in 1952. Apart from these few superficial articles, and the occasional
mention in lists of surviving bestiaries, no serious work appears to have been
done on this manuscript.

Other than the manuscript itself, this Bestiary is
only available as a digital facsimile. Working solely
from a digital facsimile has its difficulties, but
also some advantages. The chief difficulty is that
the resolution of the images on the Web site are relatively
low, so details are lost or hard to see. It is also
not possible to say much about the pigments of the
illustrations, or to be certain which element is on
top when text and image overlap. However, being digital
allows the manuscript to be manipulated in ways that
would otherwise be impossible. Such manipulations
have been used on some of the images in this paper.
The digital facsimile can also be copied easily, something
the original scribe would have undoubtedly found both
marvelous and disturbing.

Provenance

The manuscript is generally believed to be of English
origin. According to Bruun,
[8]
the script is definitely of English origin. The 1926 catalog of the Copenhagen
Kongelige Bibliotek manuscript collection also assigns the manuscript to
England, though the catalog does not cite a specific reason for this
assessment.

That it was in England at an early date is confirmed by the
signature of Anne Walshe in several places (Figure 1),
[9]
as well as other writing, in English, in the same hand. Who Anne was is not
known, though the Walshe name (or Walsh, both derived from Waleys, the family
place of origin being Wales) was common in England and Ireland at least as early
as the 12th century,
[10]
with several noble families, especially in Ireland. A record
[11]
exists of a woman named Anne Walshe being married in Somerset in 1531, though
there is no evidence linking her to the manuscript. The handwriting is 15th
or 16th century, according to Ellen Jørgensen;
[12]
Drigsdahl says the signature is late 16th century.
[13]
These dates imply that Anne was probably not the original owner, though she
could have been a daughter of a Walshe household that had owned the manuscript
for many years. The full name "Anne Walshe" only appears on folio 73r, but
partial versions appear on four other pages (and possibly a fifth).

Figure 1 - Anne Walshe’s signature practice

"Anne" is some
cases written out in full, and other cases abbreviated to "Ane," with or
without an abbreviation sign over the single "n". All instances appear to be
written by the same hand. The writing on folio 6v at first glance seems to say
"And if" or "And it" but could actually be "Ane" and two unrelated
letters. It appears to be in the same hand as the other signatures, though the
style of the "A" is different. In three cases (folio 7v, 41v and 42v) the
writing is smudged, possibly in an attempt to erase an unsatisfactory effort,
and on folio 7v the writing ends in a scribble. The impression the writing gives
is of Anne practicing her signature.

On three folia, in the same hand, is the phrase (or part of
the phrase) "my umble duti" (Figure 2). On folio 14v only "my u" appears, with the "m"
partly smudged. On folio 15r is "my umble duti" in dark, firm strokes. Folio
77v shows several attempts to write the phrase, this time with the second word
spelled "umbel". This is the last folio in the manuscript, and has several
unused text guidelines at the bottom; Anne clearly thought this was a wonderful
place to practice her writing.

Figure 2 - "My umble duti"

Anne has scribbled on several other pages in the manuscript (Figure 3).
While a few of the scribbles may contain words, most
are simple loops and doodles of the sort someone testing a pen point might do.
The scribbles are generally in the same style and type of ink as Anne’s
signature, though at least one (folio 11r) may be in a different hand. The
scribbles appear in the margins and also in the illustrations (eg: folio 16v,
where Anne has embellished the beast’s teeth).

Figure 3 - Various scribbles

The scribbling is probably the work of the same person who
signed her name "Anne Walshe" and repeatedly wrote "my umble duti": that
is, Anne Walshe herself. The pattern of the writing and scribbles suggests that
Anne was quite young and possibly learning to write. She obviously was not
impressed with the book as a work of art, and had no qualms about writing in it
wherever she pleased. She seems to have treated the book like a modern child
might treat her picture book: interesting and valued, but not sacred – a
perfectly acceptable place to practice her writing.

The manuscript arrived in Denmark as the possession of one
Jørgen Høeg. On folio 8r he has written in Danish "Denne Bog hører mig
Jørgen Høeg thill" ("This book belongs to me Jørgen Høeg"), in
what Ellen Jørgensen
[14]
calls a 17th century hand (Figure 4, image digitally enhanced).

Figure 4 - "Denne Bog hører mig Jørgen Høeg thill" (f8r)

Also on folio 8r is a separate inscription written in the
same hand (Figure 5, digitally enhanced). It begins as the previous
inscription does: "Denne Bog…" ("This book…") and appears to have
"..mig Jørgen…" in the middle of the second line. The rest of the words
are different from the previous inscription.

Figure 5 – Additional writing by Jørgen Høeg (f8r)

How the manuscript came into the possession of the Kongelige
Bibliotek is not known to me; presumably the library has records of its
acquisition, though the Web site says nothing on the subject.

There is one other inscription in quite a different hand at
the top of folio 48v (Figure 6). The writer does not appear to be the original
scribe, Anne Walshe, or Jørgen Høeg. There are what could be numbers in the
second line of the inscription ("no 6" and "23"); if these are actually
numbers (dubious) this may be an early shelf mark.

Figure 6 - Inscription in fourth script hand (f48v)

Codicology

The manuscript is a bound codex of 77 parchment folia, about
21 x 14 cm (quarto). The binding is tooled leather with gold decorations around
the edges of the front and back covers; the spine is entirely decorated with
gold. The title "Bestiarius" is stamped on the spine. There is no firm
evidence about the date of binding, though there are suggestions that it is not original.
[15]

The parchment is of varying quality, with major repairs on
several leaves, sometimes obscuring the text or illustrations. The leaf edges
have been dyed red. Most pages are quite dirty, with smudge marks and small
stains appearing in the outside margins, suggesting heavy (and possibly
careless) use. The first eight folia have a large water stain (of diminishing
size on later pages) near the outside upper edge. Several pages have later
writing or random scribbles on them. The overall appearance is of a book that
was handled frequently, and not particularly treasured.

The text script (see Figure 19, Appendix C for a sample) is a Gothic book hand,
[16]
with some odd features. Nicole Green says "…this hand [could be called]
'bastard anglicana'—that is, a mixture of textura and anglicana…";
[17]
in other words, an idiosyncratic mix of two (or more) "standard" hands. It
does bear some resemblance to what Brown calls Bastard Anglicana.
[18]
This supports Bruun’s claim that the script is certainly English.
[19]

Each section of the text, generally corresponding to the
description of a single beast, has an ornate initial in red and blue (Figure 7).
Most initials are decorated with fine red-line
flourishes that often occupy most of the vertical margin. Some folia have
smaller initials in blue or red only, with no flourishes, marking the start of
paragraphs within a beast section.

Figure 7 - Flourished initial, plain initial (f12v)

The layout of the manuscript appears to have been very
carefully planned in advance. From an examination of the overlap of ruling,
illustrations and texts it appears that the ruling was done first, followed by
the illustrations, then the body text, and finally the initials and flourishes.
This implies that the manuscript was perhaps produced entirely by a single
artist-scribe, who knew exactly what he wanted; or that the artist and/or
scribe made an exact copy of an existing manuscript. The two are of course not
mutually exclusive.

The ruling is consistent throughout the manuscript (see Figure 8 for a
representative sample of the page layout). A
rectangle about 8.5 cm wide by 15 cm high is drawn starting about 1.5 cm from
the top inside corner, forming the area of the manuscript containing the text
and images. All of the pages have this basic outline, which leaves wide margins
at the outside edge (about 3.5 cm) and bottom (about 4 cm). The margins are
decorated only with the flourishes from the chapter initials. Each folio is
numbered in a later hand in the upper right corner. The text is almost always
contained within the frame (with occasional lapses; for example, two words have
not found room inside the frame on folio 69v), though many images partly escape
into the margins. On the two pages containing only a full-page illustration
(21v and 38v), no further ruling is done, but on pages with text the frame is
ruled with horizontal text guidelines about 60 mm apart, allowing for a maximum
of 26 lines of text. Pages containing both text and images have non-ruled areas
blocked out for the illustrations, with a frame enclosing each image area to
contain the image. On several pages the ruling disappears behind an image where
it overlaps, and there is no ruling (other than the page and image area frames)
in the area covered by the images.

It seems that the program of illustration had already been
established before the ruling was done, and the ruling was arranged to lay out
exactly where illustrations were to be placed. This would mean that the scribe
would have to be very precise to fit the text into its allotted space. The
difficulty of doing this can be seen on folio 41r, where the scribe has been
forced to place the last line of text for a chapter in the following image area
(Figure 8). The text in this case has to avoid the image,
showing that the illustrations were certainly complete before the text was
written. As further evidence of this, text sometimes overlaps an image, and can
be seen to be on top.

Figure 8 - Page layout; extra text avoids image (f41r)

The initial flourishes were also
done after the illustrations; they usually stop just short of touching the
image (Figure 9).

Figure 9 - Flourish and illustration (f16r)

Text

Bestiaries generally fall into one of four groups, called
"Families" by M.R. James, who produced the first modern study of
Bestiaries in 1928.
[20]
James’ classification is by the structure and content of the
manuscript text, not by date, though the Families tend chronologically
from First to Fourth. First Family bestiaries are much like the Physiologus
they are derived from; an example is Oxford University MS Laud Misc.
247, produced circa 1120. Second Family manuscripts add considerable
material from other sources, including Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies,
Book XII; Hugh of Fouilly’s Aviarium (Book of Birds); various
classical and contemporary "natural history" books (Aristotle, Pliny,
etc.); and sometimes herbals and lapidaries. Not all of the "beasts"
are animals; birds, insects, trees and even stones are included. While
the usual Physiologus has around 51 chapters,
[21]
Second Family bestiaries often had over 100; the Bestiary of Anne Walshe has about 123.

Second Family manuscripts tend to follow one of several common
orderings of beast chapters, though there is considerable variation,
and the order is often broken by the insertion or deletion of beasts.
From an examination of the chapter order in Anne’s bestiary (see
Appendix D), it can be seen that the manuscript follows virtually the
same order as the Cambridge Bestiary,
[22]
a Second Family manuscript, for a substantial number of wild and domestic animals. It
is also similar in content to another Second Family manuscript, the
Aberdeen Bestiary,
[23]
though they follow the same order of beasts only sporadically in several separate
sequences. Clark and McMunn classify Anne’s bestiary as Second Family;
[24] the
textual evidence supports this.

Like most Second Family manuscripts, the Bestiary of Anne
Walshe is a compilation from several sources, though the scribe may
not have seen those sources himself, but merely copied the text from
another bestiary. Because the scribe used the same chapter order as a
Second Family bestiary, it follows that he must have had access to one
to use as an exemplar. There is no evidence to determine exactly where
in England the manuscript was produced, but bestiaries in England were
primarily found in monasteries and cathedral schools,
[25]
so the scribe could well have gained permission to copy one of these, or have been a
member of one of the orders owning bestiaries.

Illustrations

The Bestiary of Anne Walshe has 117 illustrations on its 154
pages (about 76% of the pages). In contrast, the Aberdeen Bestiary has 102
illustrations in 206 pages (about 50%). The illustrations in Anne’s bestiary,
however, are quite different from those in the luxury Second Family bestiaries
like the Aberdeen and Ashmole manuscripts. Anne’s bestiary has no gold at all,
and the images are simple colored drawings, rarely with any background (Figure 10).
In contrast, the luxury bestiaries have gold on
nearly every image, and the illustrations are usually complex paintings, not
simple drawings (Figure 11).

Figure 10 - PelicanBestiary of Anne Walshe (f39v)

Figure 11 - PelicanAberdeen Bestiary (f35r)

Anne’s bestiary has images on most pages, up to folio 65,
after which there are no more illustrations. The subjects of the chapters in the
final pages (trees, the nature of man) are not usually illustrated in most
bestiaries, though the subject of the last folio of the Walshe bestiary, the "lapides
igniferi" (fiery stones), often is. Some subjects traditionally were
illustrated with full-page or nearly full-page images, and the Walshe manuscript
follows this tradition with full-page illustrations of Adam naming the animals
(folio 21v) and the Cinnomolgus tree (folio 38v). Two other beasts that are
traditionally given full-page illustrations are given almost full pages here;
these are the Peridexion tree, doves and dragon (folio 49r); and the elephant
and castle (folio 6v). Several illustrations are half-page or larger. Some pages
have three images; this is a common feature in bestiary pages that describe
snakes (Figure 12/Figure 13).

Figure 12 – SnakesBestiary of Anne Walshe (f54r)

Figure 13 – SnakesAberdeen Bestiary (f68v)

The Aberdeen illustrations would have been vastly more
expensive to produce than those in Anne’s manuscript, which may be part of the
reason why Anne’s bestiary has such a high ratio of images to pages. The simple
drawings could be produced much more quickly than the Aberdeen manuscript’s
paintings, and the lack of gold would further reduce the cost per image. The
Walshe manuscript is also relatively small, so half or even full page
illustrations would not be very large.

The drawings in the Walshe manuscript have a dark
ink outline, filled with a wash of color. The pigment
looks like watercolor but is more likely to be colored
inks; medieval inks were somewhat acidic, which allowed
them to "burn" into the parchment, making the images
more durable. The Aberdeen artist used bold, saturated
colors (Figure 15), as was common in luxury bestiaries;
dull browns and pastels were rarely used. The Walshe
artist frequently used browns and other earth colors
(Figure 14), and his images are generally subdued,
though his reds and oranges are bright and stand out.

Figure 14 – BonnaconBestiary of Anne Walshe (f10r)

Figure 15 – BonnaconAberdeen Bestiary (f12r)

The drawings in Anne’s bestiary have a decidedly whimsical
air to them. The artist seems to have had a sense
of humor. The parrot, who the text says needs to be
hit over the head with an iron bar to get his attention,
looks suitably angry (Figure 16); the bonnacon (Figure
14) looks smug at his successful defense; the fox
has handily tossed his stolen goose across his shoulders
(Figure 9); and the girl who has just betrayed the
unicorn seems to show remorse (Figure 17).

Figure 16 - Parrot (f33v)

Figure 17 - Unicorn (f5v)

All of these impressions are, of course, the reaction of a
modern viewer; yet humor was common enough in medieval manuscripts, even those
with a more serious intent than the bestiary.

Conclusion

The Bestiary of Anne Walshe is an interesting manuscript,
despite lacking the flash of the luxury bestiaries. The images are appealing to
the modern eye that is used to cartoons; I am sure they were equally appealing
to Anne. The drawings are simple yet highly effective in illustrating the
characteristics of the beasts described in the text. The design and execution
of the manuscript as a whole is the work of a skilled and careful craftsman,
both artist and scribe. Anne Walshe may have handled her bestiary a bit
roughly, but I expect she treasured it all the same.

[20]
M.R. James, The Bestiary: Being a reproduction in full of the manuscript
Ii.4.26 in the University Library,
Cambridge, with supplementary plates from other manuscripts of English origin,
and a preliminary study of the Latin Bestiary as current in England
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928). This book was produced by and for the
Roxburghe Club in a very limited edition available only to club members, and was
never reprinted; most copies not still owned by members are now in university
library special collections, so the book is essentially unavailable. James’
system of classification is still in general use. Information pertaining to
James’ work has been taken from Baxter, Bestiaries
and Their Users in the Middle Ages.